30 entries from June 2013

The grill is an incredible heat source. Once fired up we use it for every course of the meal. One of our favorite techniques is to quickly grill flatbreads after the rest of the meal has been cooked. While we are doing this vegetables can marinate. Fish and meat can rest. The bread is whisked to the table still warm from the grill and we serve everything at its peak. Very often the flatbread becomes the utensil of choice. We use it to carry the food to our mouths. It acts as a mop for the juices and sauce on our plates. The flatbread becomes the thread that ties everything together.

We cut the watermelon rind into oblique shapes. Then we applied our marmalade technique. We added equal parts sugar, just under 0.5% salt and a bit of dried calabrese peppers. We macerated the rind overnight. Then we pressure cooked it for 25 minutes. When the pressure naturally dissipated we put the watermelon rind and syrup into a pot. We cooked the rind until it reached 107°C. Then we jarred the rind in sterilized jars.

We brined the foie gras for 24 hours in 3% salted milk. This process helps season the foie gras. It also rinses off blood in the veins and lightly bleaches the liver. After 24 hours we brought the foie gras to room temperature. We rinsed off the milk brine and then pressed the foie gras through a tamis. This removed the veins and impurities. We weighed the cleaned foie gras and seasoned it with 1% salt and 0.25% curing salt. We blended the seasonings into the foie gras. Then we vacuum sealed the mixture and refrigerated it overnight. The following day we removed the foie gras from the refrigerater and let it return to room temperature. We removed it from the bag and put it into a mixer. We used the paddle attachment to beat it to the consistency of a buttercream. When it was light and smooth we portioned the foie gras into dual serving vacuum bags. We chilled the unsealed bags. When the foie gras was cold we vacuum sealed the bags. Then we used a rolling pin to flatten the foie gras into an even layer. We chilled the foie gas until we were ready to eat it. To serve we sliced a portion of foie gras out of the bag and placed it on a plate. We generously spooned the watermelon rind marmalade over the top. We served it with grilled bread.

This was designed as a warm soup made with a combination of
fresh and canned tomatoes to give it a rich tomato flavor backed up by the tart floral notes of the hibiscus. We serve it
with slightly warm baby tomatoes and cold buffalo mozzarella cheese. The cheese just
begins to soften in the soup and the fresh basil leaves and flowers add aroma
and hint of peppery spice. This time of year we've also been known to serve it chilled with delicate pieces of fresh burrata. Its soft texture and creamy flavor is the perfect foil for the tomato and since the herbs are always from our weed patch they somehow taste more vibrant. Either way we like to pair it with slices of grilled bread rubbed with fresh garlic for a light summer supper that will make everyone happy to gather around your table.

Tomato Soup with Baby Tomatoes and Fresh
Mozzarella

Serves 8

Tomato stock

28 ounces/ 800 grams canned
San Marzano tomatoes

9 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon/ 140 grams hoisin sauce

7 1/2 teaspoons/ 15 grams dried
hibiscus flowers(or hibiscus
tea)

2 ¼ cups/ 500 grams water

Tomato Soup:

3 pounds / 1400 grams fresh
tomatoes

4 2/3 cups / 1045 grams tomato
stock

¾ teaspoon / 4.5 grams fine sea
salt

Baby Tomatoes:

40 mixed colored baby tomatoes

1/3 teaspoon / 2 grams sea salt

To FInish:

8 ounces / 225 grams fresh
Buffalo mozzarella

40 Thai Basil Leaves

40 Thai Basil Blossoms

8 teaspoons / 40 grams extra
virgin olive oil

To make the tomato stock, put the tomatoes, hoisin sauce,
hibiscus, and water in a 6-quart pressure cooker. Cook at high pressure for 20
minutes. Alternatively, combine all of the ingredients in heavy bottomed pot
and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Simmer gently, skimming the foam
off the top as needed, for 1 hour. Remove the pot from heat, cover, and let
steep for 30 minutes. Strain the finished tomato stock through a fine mesh
sieve lined with damp cheesecloth into a metal bowl set over an ice bath. Let
the stock cool completely, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes.

For the tomatoes, put the fresh tomatoes in a vacuum
bag. Seal them in a vacuum sealer on high pressure to compress the tomatoes. Divide
the vacuum compressed tomatoes and the tomato stock between two fresh vacuum
bags. Vacuum seal the tomatoes with the stock and let marinate overnight.
Alternatively, toss the tomatoes with the salt and then put them in 2 large zip
top bags with equal amounts of the tomato stock and let marinate overnight.

The next day, open the bags and put the tomatoes and stock in
a blender. Puree on medium speed for 90 seconds. The lower speed will coarsely
chop the tomatoes without blending the seeds and skin into the soup. Strain the
mixture through a fine mesh sieve, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid
as possible. The soup can be finished immediately or it can be chilled and
stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While the water
is heating, fill a large bowl with ice water. Blanch the baby tomatoes in the
boiling water, 5 to 6 at a time, for 5 seconds and transfer them immediately to
the ice bath. Be careful not to overcook the tomatoes, or they will become
mushy. When the tomatoes are ice cold, remove them from the ice bath. Use a
paring knife to peel the tomatoes, starting from the stem end of each one. Put
the peeled tomatoes in a container in a single layer and season with the salt. Gently
mix the tomatoes to coat evenly with the salt. Cover and reserve in the
refrigerator until you are ready to serve the soup, or up to 6 hours.

To Finish:

Pour the soup into a
large pot set over medium heat and bring it to a bare simmer. Put the baby
tomatoes, along with any juices, in a saucepan large enough to hold them in one
layer. Set the pan over low heat and just warm them through, about 5-8
minutes. Cut the buffalo mozzarella into a ½-inch dice. Put the cheese in a small
bowl and dress it with the olive oil. Arrange five assorted tomatoes and some
of the cold mozzarella cheese in center of each of 8 serving bowls. Pour the
soup into the bowls, garnish with 5 Thai basil leaves and 5 basil blossoms, and
serve immediately.

It's hot, seriously, above 90°F hot. Today I was tending to a fire in the wood burning oven and cleaning the pool at the same time. By the time the fire was ready, I was on target to jump in the pool. Good thing it's only a stone's throw away. On the bright side this kind of weather brings along its own inspirations. The shave ice machine sees a variety of new and interesting ices and as you can see from the picture above, we take chilled soup to a whole different level. The picture? Green gazpacho from our upcoming book, Maximum Flavor, out in October. The technique, making cold soup into a chilly granita. It literally melts in your mouth. Try it this summer with your favorite cold soup and you'll be inspired too.

The watermelon rind is marinated with smoked paprika, smoked amino acids and garlic powder. Then we pan roasted it in butter. We let the hot watermelon rest and warmed the lobster claw in the pan drippings. We sliced the melon and put the lobster in place. We dressed the lobster with the melon pan drippings. We glazed the melon with Minus 8 vinegar reduced in the rotary evaporator. These are pieces of a puzzle. They eat well. They could be better. They are missing a uniting element.

It's solstice,the longest day of the year. I'm looking forward to many things this summer, cooking in a wood fired oven, learning more about Korean food, exploring the art of gluten free baking, swimming under the stars, exploring the art of fermentation, and much more. Tonight's dinner was a taste test of two racks of pork from this week's workshop. One was brined in rosemary buttermilk and the other smoked. They were both surprisingly wonderful though everyone had their favorites. In the picture, the back layer is smoked. Both racks were full of juice. So much juice that it ran off the counter onto the floor. What we realized is that flavor is in the eye of the diner. Both racks were pretty darned amazing. Good is in the tongue of the taster. If you please yourself first, the right audience will find you.

We started with the idea of smoked carrot soup. We combined smoked water and carrots in the pressure cooker. We added 0.5% salt and cooked everything for ten minutes. When the carrots were cooked we pureed the mixture. The base tasted flat. We added a smoked citron marmalade. The sweetness, acidity and bitterness united the ingredients. We added 0.1% xanthan gum for body and to prevent the carrot from separating. The flavors and texture were delicious. Then we started playing around with its form. We froze the soup and scraped it into a granita. It was really exciting in its frozen form. We took the granita for a spin. We paired it with lobster knuckles dressed in olive oil and seasoned with dried calabrese peppers and smoked coriander. The dish came together. The one hiccup was the olive oil. It overpowered the lobster and dominated the dish. In further iterations we will try other oils like our preserved Meyer lemon oil.

We continue to explore buttermilk. It has become our liquid of choice in everything from ice cream to pancakes. It is creamy, smooth, sour and developed. The cultured notes of buttermilk add depth of flavor to ingredients and dishes. Buttermilk makes an excellent brine.Recently we have begun flavoring that brine with herbs. We puree the raw herb into the salted buttermilk. The process allows the flavors to mingle and transfer into the ingredients being brined. The infusion is clean and the flavor transfer is quick.

Sweet and salty is a universal combination. Add a little bit of umami and you're golden. Here we combined cryo-poached apricots and white miso. The combination unites the sweet and sour notes of the apricots with the salty fermented flavors of the miso. Today we used it to marinate a pork shoulder. It would also be delicious brushed on fish or split eggplant and broiled or as a dollop of seasoning for a pan sauce or spread under the skin of a roast chicken. The deep fruity flavor of the apricots lends itself well to a wide variety of ingredients and the salty miso makes it the perfect seasoning for the same.

Tofuwas not the only ingredient we started maturing in buttermilk. We put chunks of BelGioioso mozzarella into buttermilk seasoned with 2% salt. We refrigerated it for a week. The salted buttermilk has started to break the mozzarella down. The mozzarella has firmed up. The buttermilk has thickened. It has taken on the sweet creamy flavor of the mozzarella. We will continue to let the mozzarella and buttermilk co-exist and taste what develops. As a starting point we are onto something very flavorful.

We have been making noodles to explore the grains from Castle Valley Mill. The flavors are intense. The whole wheat is rich, grassy, slightly bitter and intense. By itself its texture resembles a cats tongue. That is not something we are usually going for. So, we blended the hard whole wheat with emmer flour. The emmer has its own nuttiness.It has strength and flexibility. We blended the two together. The noodle is intensely flavored by the grains. It has a good chew and the cat's tongue texture has subsided. For our initial tasting we used olive oil and butter. The combination lets the noodle shine. Perhaps too brightly. These noodles want sauce. There is so much flavor that on their own we are not used to it. The sauce brings balance to the equation. It demonstrates that sauce and noodle should be equal partners in delivering flavor.

We learned this technique for cleaning lobster knuckles from Chris Massi. I was more than sceptical when Chris explained the process. I have since eaten my words. And they were delicious. You use an oyster knife to run inside the first joint of the knuckle and pull out the meat. Then you use the knife to break off the shell at the joint. Finally you run the oyster knife inside the second joint and remove the remaining meat. The first few knuckles take some time getting used to. As you get into the groove the knuckle meat seems to fly out of the shells. The process becomes quick and efficient.

This is a ranch dressing coleslaw. We added chopped lovage. We have used it on sandwiches and hot dogs. It has been served as a side dish for grilled pork chops. We are terribly sorry you can't join us for dinner. Thankfully it is easy to replicate in your own kitchen.

In a household of three we can only eat so much cake. Given our current projects there have been quite a few sweets floating through the kitchen. Today I had a hankering for jam cake. Generally speaking that consists of light vanilla cake layers sandwiched together with jam and dusted with powdered sugar. This is not Alex's favorite kind of cake. So I knew that I was going to have to eat most of it myself, never a good idea. Once I mixed up my batter I divided it in half. I baked one plain vanilla layer for my cake, to be glazed with strawberry jam and dusted with sugar. I folded fresh blueberries into the remaining batter and covered the top with crumb topping. The result was the perfect breakfast cake that everyone will enjoy. Two totally different cakes from one batter. Who says cake has to be made in layers?

We have been cutting vegetables too thin. To balance this out we started cutting vegetables too thick. These vegetables take time to cook. And they can take the heat. They just need baby sitting. In the end we are rewarded for the
attention we paid during the cooking process. Tonight we put a large cast iron skillet on medium high heat. We coated the pan with a thick film of olive oil. When the oil shimmered we slid in a layer of thick cut zucchini rounds. We seasoned the rounds with salt. We cooked them until they were foxy brown. We flipped the rounds and seasoned their other side with salt. When the bottoms were equally browned we removed the zucchini from the pan and layered them on a plate. We topped the hot zucchini with globe basil leaves and shavings of Parrano Uniekaas cheese. The zucchini was caramelized and succulent. Some would say it had a meaty texture. What it had was a roasted vegetable texture. The basil added sweet aromatics. The cheese added a smooth, nutty salinity.

We look at brown butter as a distinct ingredient. We forget that it is a flavor that can be built upon. We now brown butter and cool it down. We add other flavors to the butter. This blending allows the brown butter to play a supporting role. The nutty undertones of the caramelized milk solids are carried throughout the fat creating new and fully developed flavors. Recently we blended pistachio oil with brown butter. We have also tamed the porkiness of bacon fat. Of course the folks in India have known the powers of ghee for a few years now. The difference is how and what we flavor the fat with. And where we take it.

Amaya wanted a very specific cake. We realized her vision. We made a chocolate-peanut butter cake. We brushed strawberry caramel sauce between the layers and coated everything with vanilla frosting. The cake was delicious. The one difficulty is the caramel sauce did not soak into the cake during the building. It made layering frosting on top difficult. When we had the opportunity to make the cake again, the next day, Aki had solved the problem. She heated the caramel sauce up. I was aghast at her changing cake making protocol and let my disgust be heard. She silenced my opposition with hands on evidence. I poured the warm caramel sauce onto the layers and spread it evenly out. The warm sauce was easily absorbed into the cake. I had no problem spreading the frosting over the layers. Aki's observation led to the better execution and refinement of our cake making process. The heating of the sauce/syrup for flavoring cakes will allow us to integrate flavors we had not previously thought of using.

I needed pie. Peaches aren't ripe yet. Cherries are just coming into season. We don't have a pantry stocked with jars of preserved cherries and peaches. We do have access to supermarkets. And they are selling some ripe picked and flash frozen fruit. The fruit is not cooked. It is a blank canvas preserved Han Solo style. And we take advantage of it. Aki whipped up a pie crust. While it chilled she cooked the frozen fruit filling. Then she hot loaded the pie, pinched on the top crust and put it in the oven. When is was cooked we not so patientlycooled it. The fruits blended. The crust was flakey, crispy and cooked. The juices overflowed. This was a great pie that did not last long. Good thing we can get more frozen fruit.

We froze the blueberries. We put them into the rotary evaporator with our modified glassware. We added maple syrup. The blueberries thawed and released their juices. It blended with the maple syrup. The berries began to burst and the evaporator removed some moisture. The flavors concentrated. The blueberries are still plump. We used no heat. We seasoned the mixture with 0.3% salt. The syrup is bright, clean and tastes of fresh picked blueberries. We now have a great topping for buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk ice cream and buttermilk pancake ice cream.

It is billed as a graphic novel. I guess that is a popular genre today. It doesn't matter how it is being described. In the Kitchen with Alain Passard is an incredible introduction to the processes of Alain Passard. It shows his approach to ingredients. It explores his passion for flavors. The book captures the essence of a culinary icon. The drawings bring the ideas into action. The small selection of recipes are smart and engaging. They provide a platform to build and grow upon. And if you have Alain Passard: The Art of Cooking With Vegetables this graphic novel brings life to those recipes too.

We started with pork shoulder and belly. We seasoned the meat with 0.75% salt and a heavy dose of Lacto lemons. We added smoked crushed red pepper for additional spice and savoriness. We topped the meat off with some white wine. We are letting the meat marinate for two days and then we will grind it.

We are often asked how we are able to work, live and do pretty much everything together. The funny because it's true answer is we don't know any better. Perhaps we don't know anything different. We met in a kitchen and have been cooking together ever since. We each have roles. They overlap. We bang heads. Sparks do fly. And we are better as a whole than we could ever be as individuals. Today we celebrate 13 years of not knowing. Give it a shot, you'll be surprised at what you learn.

We are aging silken tofu in salted buttermilk. The idea was sparked by the incredible kasu and miso aged tofu that Kevin from Cultured Pickle made for the Elements Dinner. I wanted the lactic notes and the salinity without the heavier flavors of the miso and floral characteristics of the kasu. We seasoned the buttermilk with 3% salt. We added the tofu. We let it ferment at room temperature for a few days. It continues to age in the refrigerator. Kevin's took 12 weeks. We are just beginning to wait.

Sauces are elegant. They connect the dots. A great sauce is sop worthy. In classic sauce making shallots are cooked down with wine and aromatics. The alcohol mostly cooks off, the wine flavor boils away and we are left with an acidic allium syrup. The sauce is built on this platform. We wanted to see if we could use the wine as the sauce. We started with vermouth and added chive blossoms. Then we spun them in the rotary evaporator. The process removed the alcohol and the harsh hot notes of the chives. We were left with the aromatic herbal notes of the vermouth infused with the tamed chive blossoms. The finished product yielded 400 grams of essence. The essence is a sauce. Almost. It carries a full flavor across the palate. The vermouth and chive blossom unite to form a distinct whole. It needs something. A bit of fat, a touch of body. And these additions will allow us to differentiate and customize the sauce to the application. For our first sauce we seasoned the essence with 0.5% salt. We gave it mouthfeel with 0.1% xanthan gum, 0.5% gum arabic. We browned 113 grams of butter and added 30 grams of pistachio oil. We enriched the essence with the blend of pistachio oil and brown butter. The only debate is whether to keep the sauce broken or emulsified.

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